Get In Shape After 40.com

American women need to get at least 25 to 30 grams of fiber per day in their diet.  Getting your daily grams of fiber is a great way to control your weight.  Not only is fiber important to our daily diet but, it also contributes in helping us manage our weight.  This is another reason to avoid the fast-food restaurants at all costs. 

Highly refined and processed foods contain little fiber not to mention nutrition.  Foods that are naturally high in fiber are also lower on the Glycemic index; they raise blood sugar levels much slower, making us feel fuller for longer periods of time.

Here is an idea of what I try to eat during the day to get all the fiber needed and also this is a perfect example of a healthy day of eating not to mention easy. 

BREAKFAST:
½ cup Post  Raisin Bran Cereal   = 8 grams of fiber - 180 calories
½ cup fat free milk - 50 calories
1 cup blueberries  = 4  grams of fiber   -  80 calories

SNACK:
yogurt:  calories 120

LUNCH:
½  TURKEY Sandwich with romaine lettuce & tomato & mustard
1 slice whole wheat bread = 2 grams of fiber - 80 calories
1 tomato - 1 gram of fiber - 25 calories
3 slices deli turkey -  60 calories
1 oz. Pretzels - 1 gram fiber - 100 calories

DINNER:
1 cup cooked spinach =  4 grams fiber - 50 calories
lemon pepper salmon  using ½ fillet - 220 calories
¾ wild rice - 2 grams fiber - 160 calories
1 cup sliced strawberries - 4 grams of fiber - 50 calories

SNACK:
2 oz. low fat cheddar cheese & 1 glass red wine =  150 calories 

Total Calories  = 1,305
Total Fiber = 26

If you want to bump up your fiber total for the day - eat a pear.  Pears are high in fiber and come in many different varieties.  Place pears in a brown paper bag to ripen.  Check for softness near the top of the pear.  When ripe enough, you can keep pears in the fridge for about a week.

I have started walking to burn 200 calories per day so that brings my total burned calories (per day) to about 1,750 figuring in my BMR.   So I have -450 calories in my deficit bank for the day.  If I can do this every day I will easily loose a pound per week. 

We may have no choice in getting old, but I intend on putting off feeling old for a very long time.  Setting realistic goals each day that will lead to a healthier life is key to getting into shape after 40.

The absolute best part of exercising after 40 is your body starts to age backwards.  After about 6 weeks of strength training and a good cardio workout, your body starts to look and feel much younger.  I don’t need any scientific evidence to support this theory because I know it is true.  You start to see improvements in muscle tone, which improves balance, coordination, agility and flexibility.  The “old age shuffle” is what scares me the most.  If you really start to pay attention, you can tell someone that is aging poorly by the way they walk. 

Just how good you want to look and feel is going to determine how much effort you will put behind your fitness and diet plan.  But, the good news is, once you get started, the feeling of fitness is going to far outweigh any sacrifices you have made in your diet.  It is the healthy diet that is going to give you the ability to motivate yourself into the ideal fitness plan. By fueling your body with the proper nutrition, you will have the motivation and desire to start moving.

We need to be very selfish about our exercise time. Don’t let the rest of your life “just happen,”  get out there and make it happen by finding fun exercise opportunities everywhere. 

On the average, walking burns approximately 100 calories per mile. Start slowly the first week.  Walk at a slow pace to warm-up for 5 minutes and then walk at a faster pace for 10 minutes.  To cool down, always end with a 5 minute slow down pace.  Each day try and add a little more time to your faster pace minutes until you reach at least 20 - 30 minutes.  Try to aim for at least 2 hours of walking the first week.

Healthy Breakfast tip:  Try “healthy sautéing” about 1 - 1 1/2 cups of chopped fresh baby spinach.  Healthy sautéing  is using about 1/2 of chicken or vegetable broth instead of butter or oil. Simmer the spinach until wilted and most of the liquid is gone.  Meanwhile in a small bowl, beat two eggs lightly adding 1 small chopped fresh tomato to the eggs.  Add egg mixture to the spinach mixture and cook until the eggs are medium to firm.  (scrambling as you go.) Try adding a tablespoon of either feta or blue cheese.  Add 1 piece of 100% whole-wheat toast.   It is definitely a myth that we need to eat 2 pieces of toast.  We only need one for breakfast and one for lunch.  Just make sure your bread says “100%” whole- wheat bread.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments!

I must admit I have always loved eggs.  I  loved them when they were bad for you and I love them  even more now that they are good for you.  

My sister takes hard-boiled eggs to work every morning.  She boils enough for a couple of days and then, every morning, she puts a couple in her jacket pocket to eat later when she gets to work.  Whatever works to get  your  breakfast in is fine, even if it means running around  with eggs in your pocket.  My only problem is I am not sure if my toast will fit in my other pocket!  (just kidding)   

I suppose it goes along the same lines as “walk every single day even if there is a tornado.”    That is how important breakfast is to help us get in shape after 40.  We must eat breakfast and we must start walking.  Lose the excess weight and do this by starting at your own level and taking small steps.  Walking is the first step to better fitness… breakfast is the first step to weight loss , but back to the egg.

Eggs contain all the vitamins we need except for vitamin c.   Eggs are quick, cheap and the ultimate fast food.  Egg protein is the best protein you can eat.

Studies now show that eggs are not really the cholesterol problem that was once thought.  Saturated fat coming from animals & processed foods make up for most of our cholesterol problems, not the nutritious egg.

My favorite is Egg.land’s cage free brown eggs. It does not really matter if you eat brown or white eggs they both have the same nutritional value.   The color of the hen determines the color of the eggs.  I just feel that the cage free eggs are a much healthier choice, and for the extra money you can see a big difference in the quality of the egg.

Nutritious Weekend Eggs (Don’t put these in your pocket)
2 eggs.
1 (8 oz). can tomato sauce
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 tsp. olive oil
½ tsp. basil
Parmesan cheese

Scramble 2 eggs ( in your little 6″ skillet.)  Place the eggs on a plate and rinse the skillet.  In the same skillet, sauté onion and garlic in olive oil till soft.  Add tomato sauce and basil.  Simmer for about 1 minute.  Pour sauce over eggs and sprinkle with a little Parmesan cheese.

This is a great way to prepare eggs.   Save half of the sauce and you can quickly heat up for another breakfast.  More breakfast ideas to come.
 

Breakfast starts your metabolism going in the morning and can raise it as much as 10% which is the main reason why I have finally  chosen to start each day with a healthy breakfast.  Also, skipping breakfast causes your blood sugar to drop, which we know from my last post, can leave your hunger out of control.  

When you skip breakfast, your body starts to go into famine mode and your metabolism slows down.  If you don’t eat after 7:00 pm the night before, and then wait and eat the next day at lunch, your body has not been fueled for 15 full hours.  The body reacts by slowing your metabolism and burning energy much more slowly in the event you should run out of food.  (Preparing for famine)
 
Another perfect example of why you should eat breakfast is the mid-morning snack-fest.   You wake up, skip breakfast,  make it to work (hopefully on time) only to find that someone has brought in Krispy Krème donuts.  When you just can’t stand the hunger any longer you grab a couple of donuts (they are small and no one can eat just one)  and don’t think much about it.  600 calories and 32 grams of fat later, not to mention absolutely no nutritional value, your sugar levels spike and then plummet leaving you absolutely starved and without much energy. 

When you get up and eat a healthy breakfast with the right foods, it is so much easier to pass up the junk because you really aren’t that hungry.  If you do start to get hungry, a small snack of yogurt or a piece of fruit will be just fine to keep you going until lunch.  This is why studies have proven that people that eat breakfast weigh less than those that don’t. 

Even if you don’t believe it, you can always give it a try for a week and start each day with a healthy breakfast.  One of the best things that I have personally have done to help me find the time to eat breakfast is buying a small skillet.  I bought a 6″ Teflon skillet that mentally has helped me to find the time to eat breakfast.  I am not sure why this has worked, but it has.  I know that in under 3 minutes I can cook my eggs, make my whole wheat toast and clean up the mess and be out the door.  I normally stick a yogurt in my purse to eat when I get to work, and I eat my eggs on toast in the car.  My opinion is it is no worse than talking on your cell phone while driving.

So - buy a very small non-stick  skillet, lightly fry some eggs without butter, put on top of 1 slice of whole wheat bread, add a small glass of juice and you are on your way to a much better start to your day.

I will have more healthy breakfast - start your day tips on my next post.  Hope you give this one a try.

Fighting fat in our 40’s is like fighting  a war.  There is a constant, physical and mental battle going on within us as we try to find the right balance of food, exercise, time, and motivation.  Luckily, there is hope for those of us who wish to wage the tricky weight battle,  however, it does not come in the form of a diet nor a diet pill. It all starts with finding that balance of eating the correct foods to maintain a healthy weight and lifestyle. Our Glycemic Index may be one of the most important weapons in our weight control arsenal.

Scientists discovered the glycemic index (GI) while trying to help people suffering from diabetes.  The good news is, what they found not only helps diabetics, but it helps us as well.  They wanted to see how carbohydrates affected glucose levels (how much sugar is in the blood.) 

What they found was certain carbohydrates spiked glucose levels quickly after being consumed.  Your body quickly digests these foods and quickly turns them into sugar in turn producing way too much insulin causing a big spike in sugar levels. (This is where the pancreas becomes consistently overwhelmed causing diabetes.) Quickly coming down off of the other side of the spike causes your hunger to feel out of control.

If you eat a low GI lunch then you should start to feel a little hungry around 3:00.  If you eat a poor lunch with high GI foods, chances are your hunger will be way out of control at 3:00.  Why?  Low GI foods take longer for the body to process providing a steady stream of energy and keeps you feeling full much longer.  In addition, foods with high GI ratings tend to have little nutritional value, which translates into useless calories.   Here is the GI Chart to give you an idea.

The glycemic index range is as follows:
Low GI = 55 or less
Medium GI = 56 - 69
High GI = 70 or more

Here is an example of one food’s GI rating.
Instant White Rice 87 
Brown Rice 50 

Once you start to pay attention to the GI Index, you will see that the foods with a higer GI value are also the foods that we should be avoiding.  White bread, white mashed potatoes, white rice, processed foods, bakery items, crackers, sugary cereals all have a high GI value.  It starts to make massive sense when you put this all together.  

The best part of starting on a healthier diet is you will feel so much better.  This doesn’t mean that you can never eat your favorite foods or some French fries or even a fried fish dinner.  But, I promise, once you eliminate these foods and  start eating healthier, you will no longer want these foods.  Once you pick up a boxed meal at the grocery store  and read the ingredients and really start to think about what you are  doing to your health it just won’t seem quite as appealing as it once did.  I promise.  It works.

Next:  we are going to look at breakfast - that thing we never have time for.  LOL

To get fit in my 40’s and beyond, I am eliminating certain foods and drinks. My previous blog targeted soft drinks and fried foods. The third food on my list of foods to eliminate is processed foods and overly processed foods. 

This is the most painful of all foods to give up because it is the easiest to grab when we are on the go and one of tastiest groups of all of our foods. (Not that it’s a food group.)

Processed foods (refined foods) can be anything from cheese doodles to white bread.  We take nutrient rich grains and process all of the goodness out of them.  Why?  Again it comes down to “shelf life” (can sit on the grocery store shelves for weeks,) and manufacturer’s making more money (lots more money.) 

Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water!  The way our wheat is processed is exactly that. We basically strip all of the vital nutrients out of our grains to produce white flour.  Not only that, but then we add chemicals to enhance the “whiteness” of the flour so we can produce these gorgeous breads, cookies, cakes and crap that sits on our grocery store shelves for weeks without spoiling. 

Let’s look past the beauty and see what is really going on. Let’s learn to detect the real enemies and improve our own “shelf life” so that we can have many, many, great years ahead of us and live them doing things that we enjoy.  Now is the time in life to make goals of the things we would like to do before our bodies do turn “old and gray,” when we inevitably resort to the tight little perm and thigh-high varicose vein stockings.

Trans fat, (”Shortening,” “partially hydrogenated vegetable oil” or “hydrogenated vegetable oil,”)  artificial preservatives, chemicals, nitrates, dyes and artificial additives are just a short list of things added to our foods to enhance flavor and “shelf life.”

We will look at the affect of only one of our organs; the Pancreas.  The pancreas produces insulin that helps to control our blood sugar levels.   The more processed foods we eat, the harder the pancreas has to work to control blood sugar levels. As we age, this may result in the overworked pancreas to work less effiecently. This wearing out can bring the onset of Diabetes because it has a much harder time controlling blood sugar levels. 

The pancreas also manufactures important digestive enzymes.  In our human bodies, enzymes are very important and a word that we never hear about.  Ask a friend if they have had enough enzymes in their diet today and I will bet you get a puzzled look. One of the vital roles played by enzymes is to help with our immune systems. The very system that helps to fight off cancers. 

Our pancreas also manufactures important digestive enzymes.  This helps to digest our food properly and get the nutrients flowing in the right direction.  But, and it is a big but, our pancreas was designed to “help” manufacture the digestive enzymes by breaking down foods that already contained these important enzymes. Get it?  Help - not doing the job by itself.  So, in our 30,000 + McDonalds restaurants and our highly processed foods with boxed meals, cookies, crackers, white bread & artificial crap, our pancreas has been left holding the bag.  It can’t do its job when it is continually overwhelmed.  

Our body has to spend more energy trying to produce these enzymes than producing the other important enzymes that will help keep our immune systems healthy. 

There is no nutritional value in processed foods and fast foods.  All this work that our body has to do results in nothing.  The more we load our bodies with the bad foods, the more we push our bodies into old age, sickness and general bad health.

The bottom line is, by eating processed foods,  we are putting toxins into our body faster than our bodies can remove them. Our generation can be saved. We were not brought up on fast foods and processed foods. It is the generation behind us that is very scary. 

Next we will look at how to get more enzymes into our diets and how to pick our foods wisely.

1. No soft drinks or diet drinks.
2. No Fried Foods.
3. No processed foods including white bread and white rice and fast foods.

Think of the worst traffic jam in Los Angeles and you have a good idea of what we do to our ourselves when we consume our all-time favorite foods.  Fried Chicken, french fries and rolls with lots of butter or margarine are creating a traffic jam within our bodies and clogging our arteries at an alarming rate. 

Partially hydrogenated oil, vegetable shortening, or margarines that are loaded with trans fats are to blame for much of the congestion. 

Heart Disease is on the rise and has been determined to be  the number one killer in the United States.

We have always known that too much  saturated fat is to blame for heart disease, but now we have “trans fat”, a much more secretive and deadlier killer.

About one hundred years ago, plain old cheap vegetable oil was processed through hydrogenation adding more bulk to the oil so it didn’t spoil as easily and wasn’t as greasy.  Why?  It was much cheaper than butter or lard and would last much longer.  Instead of having a 2-3 day shelf life, products could now last much longer and have a better chance at getting sold.  Brilliant.  Except for the fact that, 100 years later, we are finding that this process created nasty little critters called trans fats.

Anything with “partially hydrogenated vegetable oil” is a danger.  Unfortunately, it is found in most things that are crunchy, crispy, creamy and sits on your grocery shelf for weeks on end disguised as  “bakery products” or in your favorite fast food fried foods.

Things are looking up though. In 2006, the New York City board of health was the first to ban all trans fats from its restaurants including their fast-food restaurants.

Of course there are other reasons for clogged arteries and a sedentary lifestyle is probably at the top of the list.

When we exercise and raise our heartbeat, our arteries widen to accommodate the increase in blood flow. This stretching helps to reduce the hardening of the arteries.

Most women who are overweight do not exercise and eat way too much. Overeating, or eating the wrong things, is a major contributor to that lethargic feeling we get when stuffed.

Lethargy and overeating is a major cause in not being able to motivate yourself to exercise and getting on your way to a healthier heart. Start your get in shape trip today and avoid those traffic jams in your arteries. Decide on a goal each week. Start here -

Goal for 1 week: No Soda and No fried Foods.

I believe women have much more common sense after 40.  By now we have tried all the fad diets and traveled all the dead end trails to keeping weight off.

I hate to say it but, diets do work.  They work for short-term weight loss.  However, we are a society that does not like to be deprived, at least not for very long. Once the diet has made us feel deprived, we head straight back to our old habits that got us in trouble in the first place.

So instead of making ourselves feel deprived, we are going to keep all of the foods that we love, but eliminate a couple things that will put our future health in danger. 

1.  Sugar - the calorie thief.  Things to eliminate: soft drinks or any drinks that contain sugar, cookies, candy, muffins.  These are empty calories and americans consume way too much sugar. This has a direct impact on our health and the health of our children because it adds fat to our waistline. One factor in developing Type 2 Diabetes is unhealthy fat but, more than just unhealthy fat, it effects our fat to muscle ratio. Another good reason to increase our muscle mass. What is a major cause in this rise in unhealthy fat?  Sugar, the empty calorie.

1 can of Pepsi has approximately 10 teaspoons of sugar.  Put 10 teaspoons of sugar in a bowl and try to eat it.  You would never knowingly do this because you have common sense right? So, our first challenge is to eliminate all soft drinks from our diet and eliminate them forever. 

Our first reaction of course is to switch to diet drinks.  (Not wanting to feel deprived.)  This is a big danger that most people are not even aware of.  Diet drinks contain aspertame. Three byproducts of aspartame are methanol, formaldehyde, and formate.  Do I need say more?  If you doubt that the american public would be put at such a health risk by having these chemicals added to our soft drinks, just consider cigarettes and their affect on our health.  It really comes down to big companies making big money and and having billions of dollars to lose.  Make your own choice, but for me, I am sticking with the healthy drink.  Water. 

Our heathy lifestyle change for today is to rid all soft drinks from our diets.  We will not replace them with diet drinks that have added chemicals that can do damage to our bodies.

Tomorrow we will gladly say goodbye to commercially fried foods.

I feel like a foolish 40ish woman.  I never really paid any attention to the word “metabolism”, also known as BMR, until I started the 40 something weight gain. Looking for an answer and a cure, I now realize my darn BMR is too low.

There are 3 ways to determine your BMR and the easiest way is to multiply your current (honest) weight by 10.  In order to keep this number higher and burn more calories per day, there are changes that must be made in the 40+ lifestyle. 

Exercise is the number one answer.  But, no longer will the stroll around the neighboorhood suffice.  Walking is a great way to burn a few calories, but walking alone will not work to increase our BMR levels or our muscle mass.  What then? 

Weight training should be the number two answer right under exercise.   We need to change our body flab to muscle.  Ok, the term is body fat but we all know that women have flab. Especially around the hips and belly.  Pretty plain and simple. Weight training will increase our muscle mass and we all know that muscle burns more calories than fat.  Working our muscles keeps our metabolism humming for a good 6-8 hours after we are done with our workout. The harder the workout, the higher the hum.

We still need to walk, but to truly get in shape after the age of 40, we need to be aggresive in our workouts.  We need to really ”feel the burn,” we need to sweat heavy, be red-faced, push ourselves to the limit and do the things we never dreamed possible.   Find your limits and then exceed them and for that moment you will find true and complete happiness. 

My first step to getting fit in my 40’s is understanding why I am gaining weight in the first place. I always assumed that I was destined to be plagued by the “middle age spread,” just like my mother and her sisters. The good “go spread it on the mountain” news is that we do not have to settle into our mother’s bodies!

There are two major factors that play into why we struggle with weight after 40. First is your BMR (Basal metabolic rate) and second is your activity intensity level. Your BMR is scary. It is the calories you burn just by being alive. ( I get a mere 1,300 per day) Each day, your body will burn a certain amount of calories by; beating your heart, breathing, blinking, etc. If I live a sedetary life, then I get to add about 250 more calories to that daily total. I have approximately 1,550 calories in food that I can eat just to maintain my weight because that is all the calories that I burn during one day. Scary, very scary when you consider dinner and a glass of wine can easily add up to 800 or 900 calories. See how easy it is to gain weight?

The good news is, we can change this if we have the desire to lead a more healthier life. After 40 years of age, most people simply slow down. We move less and eat more.

Our lives are not as hectic as they once were and we are at a new stage in life where things start to get a little easier. Our calorie intake is going up (or staying the same) and we are burning less off. Now it is much easier for me to see why the after 40 weight gain is so easy for women.

We need to change our lifestyles from sedetary to active, reduce our caloric numbers and; we need to change them in a big way. Lets get started!